MacMost: Photos

When dealing with image files on your Mac, it is useful to know the difference between JPEG and GIF files, what HEIC or HEIF files are, what RAW means, and when to use a PNG file.

Perhaps the most creative tool in the Photos app is the ability to use Markup tools directly on photos. You can add text, shapes and draw. Here ate 10 creative ways to use Markup on your photos.

You probably have dozens or hundreds of photos in your Photos Librar you can use as social media profile pictures. Learn how to easily find the best ones, crop, adjust and apply filters, and create great social media profile pictures that are ready to use.

There are a lot of adjustments you can make to photos in the Mac Photos app, but to get started learn these 7 simple steps.

You can use either Pages or Keynote to build a photo collage. Pages is better suited to printing and exporting PDFs. Keynote is best for creating collages to be shared online or viewed on your screen. Both apps have the same tools so building a collage is similar in either app.

When you import photos from a camera or card into the Mac Photos app, you can choose to skip duplicates and place photos directly into an album. But you can also use this powerful feature when just importing files as well.

Smart Albums are a handy tool in Mac Photos that can be used to view photos in your library that match certain criteria. Unlike regular albums, you don't add photos to the album manually and they automatically update as you add new photos.

Hidden on your Mac is a set of image filters that you can use on your image files. You can access them in an Automator action, which means you can easily build a simple app that will allow you to apply them to an image quickly. Access filters like blur, comic book, pixelate, neon, and so many more. You can even use this to quickly resize images.

If you need to grab a single frame from a video and turn it into a still image or add it to your Photos library, you can do it using a few steps even though a direct function for that doesn't exist in the current Photos app. Here are two methods you can use.

The Mac Photos app has some deep functionality and even regular users may not know some of these tips. Learn how to search by photo contents, convert Live Photos to long exposure pictures, export contact sheet PDFs, adjust and filter videos, create multiple libraries and much more.

You can share photos online using the Photos app on your Mac and iCloud. Others can view it on a public website on in their Photos app. You can also make the album private and allow others to add photos and comments to the album.

Your Photos app on your Mac will occasionally suggest groups of photos to view as Memories. You can view the photos in the Memory, or watch it as a slideshow. You can also save Memories and let Photos know if you'd like to see fewer memories like the one you are viewing.

MacOS Big Sur adds the ability for you to adjust, filter, crop, rotate and trim videos right in the Photos app, without needing to go to iMovie or Final Cut Pro. You can use the same editing techniques you use for photos, but applied to an entire video.

You can crop a photo using the tools that come with every Mac. If the photo is in the Photos app, you can use the cropping function in the editing tools there. If the photo is an independent file, you can use Preview or Markup Tools to crop it.

You don't need to launch Affinity Photo to use some of its tools. You can access basic adjustments, haze removal, retouch tools and other things right in the Mac Photos app.

You can use Affinity Photo to make adjustments and apply filters to your photos directly from the Photos app. By using adjustment layers, you can test out different changes and play with settings to get the result you want.

If you need to open PDF files or just want a decent image editing app that doesn't cost too much or require a subscription, there are plenty of options in the Mac App Store and elsewhere. All of these and 64-bit apps that work with macOS Catalina and beyond. See https://macmost.com/mac-photoshop-alternatives.html for links.

It seems that uploading to Instagram is something you can only really do from your phone. But by tricking the site into thinking your Mac is a phone, you can easily upload photos and viddos to Instagram in Safari on your Mac.

If you want to combine photos into a collage, you can do it using Pages. By using Page Layout mode with custom page dimensions, rulers, guides, box shapes and alignment tools, you can create a grid of photos that at any size. Then you can drag and drop pictures from the Photos app into each box. You can also use borders or even build creative designs with various shapes and sizes.

THe Photos app includes tools like albums and tags to help you organize your photo library. But if you like, you can skip that and just use built-in features that automatically group your photos by dates, locations, people or objects.